Locations are preexisting places in a virtual world from which to conduct
a shoot. This contrasts with a set, which is
something custom built for one or more scenes. In general locations don't
change much. They might or might not be owned by either a crew's group or
even a member of a group, but in either case there will be reasons why
the terrain and what's built in can't or won't be quickly changed. For
example, the location may have a specific purpose (not just look good),
people might have their homes there, or the location may be only part of
a larger parcel with specific conditions.

Within the Second Life/Opensimulator grids, there are three types of
locations you can use: Second Life; The Hypergrid; and
Stand-alone Grid. There are different issues for each of these
types. In the following three sections, we'll use the example of scouting
for a location that looks like a university.

Second Life

Second Life is the original grid that uses the "Second Life style" of
world. As such it has a rich tapestry of sims from which locations can be
sourced. But also, because of that, there's a variety of issues that can
affect a choice of location.

Generally places that are fully open to the public seldom need permission
for your Avatar or Alt to be there (e.g. Governor Linden's Mansion). But this can also be a matter of
scale. One Avatar might not make much of a difference, but a dozen or
more, all with with attachments and maybe scripts, might. This can add to
lag, and may disrupt the main purpose of that location. When in doubt,
ask the owner first!

Private/commercial locations must have prior permission
to use doing a shoot there. You "might" get away with doing a shoot in
someone's home if they're not there, but it's still an invasion of
privacy. It's better to ask the owner first if it's OK to shoot in their
home, and accept their decision (even if it's NO), than just go ahead
anyway. You might not get the location you want, but you also won't be
reported to the Lindens either. With commercial venues (like clubs) you
also need to ask permission first. Imagine say, a dozen avatars appearing
in a night club when it's open but not actually dancing or tipping, and
all conversing only within their own group. That might be perceived as a
form of griefing to those unaware of what's happening, and they'd be
right!

The region's privately owned by the case builders group
and is rated General. You can't drop or build objects in
the region, nor can you push people, but scripts do work, and it
allows public access. In addition to the large building
facade (there are no rooms other than the foyer), there's also a pyramid
building with a large lecture theatre and also a security room with
mocked-up monitors! There's also another building in the sim that has
meeting spaces and medical simulation roleplay spaces. Also scattered
around the sim are open boxes with mockups of office and and interview
spaces.

On the surface this seems an ideal location. Shooting here with half a
dozen avatars or fewer probably won't disrupt any of the activities that
normally happen here. However, any larger number of avatars/alts, or
shooting in the lecture theatre, simulation, or mockup areas might do so.
And what explanation what you offer of one of the avatars of the owning
group turned up when you were shooting in the security room? Better to
ask under these circumstances.

The Hypergrid

OpenSimulator is the "opensource version" of Second Life, and the
Hypergrid is the collection of OpenSimulator grids that are connected to
each other. What this connection means is that avatars in one grid can
teleport (visit) another. So, although each grid is individually smaller
than Second Life, combined together as the Hypergrid, they create a
tapestry of regions and builds that is diverse and potentially rich in
detail. This means that not only cam you find unique and interesting
locations, but you can have a crew that consists of avatars from
different grids, who teleport to the grid the location's in!

Everything about locations that applies to Second Life, also
applies to the Hypergrid. In addition there are other concerns
that affect the use of a location. Hypergrid worlds, having a much
smaller population of users and avatars, tend to have a higher sense of
community. Asking for permission for a large shoot is
good manners in a community, and also an opportunity to involve members
of that community in the shoot as well. Not only that, but it's also a
good excuse for avatars in orther grids to come visit. It helps to have
someone who has an avatar in that world to ask permission as well.

Otherwise not giving warning, and having a bunch of "out of grid" avatars
turn up, do the shoot, and then disappear, doesn't do much for the grid
or the owners of the sim you're shooting in. However if you or members of
your crew come forward and make the shoot a grid or community event, you
add interest and variety to that grid.

You may not be able to use NPCs in someone else's sim, even if you can
build or drop items there. NPCs require at least a "high" level of
security to work properly. See at
OpenSimulator for details.

Looking for a university location, we find Chelsea, and its adjacent sims of Lynn, Rocker
and Aero. This is the 3RGUNI, and part of
the Mainland in 3rd
Rock Grid.

Within these resions we find a variety of buildings and features,
including ornamental ponds, domed buildings including the scriptorium,
radio and optical telescopes, astronomy displays, the great exhibition
hall, a large lecture theatre, and others. So there are a variety of
places that we can use for a shoot. The regions are owned by the 3RG
Elders group, and while public access is allowed, only members of that
group can add objects or run scripts. The sandbox is the exception to
both of these restrictions.

So, while these areas could be used for a shoot, with no scripting
allowed it may be difficult to use things like HUDs, whereas gestures
shouldn't be affected. That may not be an issue, unless you need a scipt
to generate particles (perhaps for rain?). Someone with a camera HUD
could still run it, but only in Rocker and only in in the sandbox.

Stand-alone Grid

Not all grids running OpenSimulator are connected to the Hypergrid,
though they might still be accessible via the internet, depending on how
they are configured. Either way the grid is running on the owner's server
which is usually on their hardware. So, the number and size of sims is
only dependent on what the owner (or members of the grid) creates and the
storage available.

This encourages creating a number of custom sims, each a location (or
part of a location) which can be dedicated to particular scenes in a
comic. Not only that, but not all sims need to running at the same time
when the grid is running. Existing sim definitions can be "commented out"
in the Regions.ini file (or other ini files in
the \bin\Regions\ folder). When the grid is then run, those sims
are not loaded at all. The process can be reversed by "uncommenting" the
lines with the sim definition. For example, if the Regions.ini
looks like this...

...then region ONE will be loaded, but region Two won't. To
re-enable Two, edit the file and remove the leading semicolons.

Because everything's owned by one person or a group, you can set the
safety level to anything you want. That means that NPCs can be fully
enabled in a stand-alone grid. You can create any number of NPCs to suit
your needs, provided you've created a character for your avatar first, to
copy as an NPC.

OARs and IARs

One drawback to using stand-alone grids is that content must come from
somewhere. In Second Life and the Hypergrid you can usually go out and
buy something that might be close to what you need. On a stand-alone grid
you can't buy anything you (or the group) hasn't already added or
uploaded. The flip side to this issue is the use of OARs and IARs. An
OAR is a backup of one or more regions. You can use the
server console to save a region as an OAR, and load a saved OAR to a
region. An IAR is an inventory backup and likewise, you can use
the server console to save part or all of an avatar's inventory, and load
a saved IAR to an avatar's inventory as well. Free OARs and IARs are
available at websites slike Outworldz and Zadaroo, as well as elsewhere.

Both can be used on the Hypergrid (and some places sell OARs) but you
need to check the grid's documentation for how to do that. While free
content is fine, just remember that if everyone else uses the same
content, then whatever you create with that content will most likely look
the same. Original creations will give any comics you make a more
distinctive look.

The most important use for both OARs and IARs is in backing
up your stand-alone grid. You could just back up the grid by
copying the folder (and subfolders), but backing up using OARs and IARs
gives you extra options, such as copying a region, or having different
"snapshots" of your regions and inventories, allowing you to "rewind" to
an earlier version. To avoid confusion you should clearly name and date
each OAR and IAR saved. For example an OAR of the ONE region saved
on 4th Novemeber might have a filename of ONE(16-11-04).OAR, or
ONE(11-04-16).OAR or maybe ONE(04-11-16).OAR.It really
doesn't matter so long as you're consistent, and can tell one backup from
the other.

Universal Campus

In our search for a university location, we come across
The Universal
Campus OAR (also
availablehere). This was originally created to provide a "downloadable
infrastructure for organizing and deploying collaborative meetings, such
as classes, research group meetings, and conferences in a virtual 3D
world." A noble idea, but our interest is in using it as a shooting
location.

After loading the OAR into your grid (see instruction_manual_v1.2
PDF/ODT on the website) we can examine the Universal Campus. It contains
a variety of buildings including an observatory, a lighthouse, radar dishes
and a heliport. A possible drawback to using this sim is that it's script
heavy. Most of those scripts are related to videocasting and meetings,
but even so that means that there can be lag, even before you deploy any
avatars or NPCs. However, you can edit any settings for the region, and
edit individual objects, so that may not be a big issue in the long term.
One drawback is that this OAR is widely known so it will be immediately
obvious to those familiar with the Hypergrid which region this is.

Redressing OARs

Another possibility is to "redress" a region created by importing an OAR.
Suppose we decide to go with the Universal Campus above, but in a later scene
it's been devastated by an attack. We could simply load the OAR to another
sim and then edit the objects in that sim to reflect the changes we need.
This isn't going to affect the original OAR, which we could still import
(perhaps for a flashback scene) if we need it. Good practice would be to save
the modified OAR just in case (maybe with a name like Universal
Campus(Modded).OAR).

Crediting Locations Used

It's good form to credit any location used in a major shoot, especially
if you have asked for and got permission to shoot in a
(semi-)private/commercial sim. If you credit a location, you should
acknowledge by whose permission you used it, and give a SLURL/Grid
location so that others can find that location as well. When asking for
permission, it can also be good to mention crediting the use of it as
well.